One of the greatest gifts of retirement is not having to spend hours concerned with the expectations of those in the workplace. Replaced is the need to finish the work within, really listen to those I love, and live every day as if it is my last. Creating memories is a high priority, now more than ever. Reminiscing has its place too. I need to make room in my heart for more of both.
I recently deleted something I had written. It was about some people in my life from my adolescence and early teenage years. Many of the individuals that I was writing about are no longer alive. However, the actions of those people from fifty plus years ago still leave the scent of brokenness on my soul. Although forgiven, the pain remains, ever how dull it may now be. Sometimes the words spoken, and actions associated, that hurt me and my destiny, return and play in my mind like an old phonograph set on replay.
Writing has been my therapy as of late, as I embrace this new season of life. Learning to be content with dreams unfulfilled, and prayers yet to be answered, isn’t easy. I must visit the places of my past that are hard and lay them to rest at some point. The sooner I do the more freedom I will experience. Writing helps me to go to those places, deleting these words I had written was an act of forgetfulness. I am not saying all bad memories need to be forgotten, some teach us lessons, we accept them and there is peace. But these that I still grieve over because of the life they stole from me need to be buried!
If I were to begin writing a list of the people and experiences I am thankful for right this minute, I would still be writing this time tomorrow! Last November I wrote for thirty days things I am thankful for. Perhaps when the old records start to play, I should read aloud and record the thanksgivings I penned last fall. Then if those hurtful memories in the deleted trash try to resurface, I could listen to the new recording, set it on replay, and replace the pain of the hurtful ones with a heart of thanksgiving and drown the deleted ones in the sea of forgetfulness forever.
